


The Speeches

by FloreatCastellum



Series: Slice of Life One-Shots [20]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Weddings, wedding speech
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-05
Updated: 2019-06-05
Packaged: 2020-04-08 11:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19106158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FloreatCastellum/pseuds/FloreatCastellum
Summary: At Ron and Hermione's wedding reception, Harry must give his best man's speech. Ginny won't let him cut one of the jokes.





	The Speeches

‘Why don’t you have a drink to soothe your nerves?’

‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I’m not nervous.’

‘Are you sure?’ she asked, glancing down at his hands, playing with the note cards.

‘Yeah, I’m fine,’ he said, with a slight choking feeling in his throat. ‘There’s a lot of people, aren’t there?’

‘We know them all, though,’ she said gently.

 _That will make it worse when none of them laugh_ , he wanted to say, but he just hummed and gazed around the hall. It had the kind of delicacy Hermione loved, with bursts of spring flowers on each round table and twinkling lights wrapped around the wooden beams that held up the vast ceiling.

‘I should take that joke out,’ he said abruptly.

‘Don’t take it out-’

‘Your parents are in the room!’

‘It’s really not that bad-’

‘But there’s children-’

‘You’ve got the charm on, haven’t you?’ There was a nifty little enchantment on his notecards that meant any inappropriate language would sound blurred out to anyone under the age of sixteen.

‘Well, yeah, but there’s still the context-’

However a voice boomed suddenly introducing Mr Weasley and Ms Granger-Weasley, and from the far end of the hall they appeared, walking to their table to rapturous applause, both of them grinning madly.

Harry probably would have enjoyed the food at any other time, but his stomach twisted as he constantly picked up and put down his note cards, barely talking to Ginny on his left or Hannah on his right, forcing himself to smile and wave back when Teddy gleefully spotted him from the kids’ table.

Ginny kept suggesting he have some of the wine that was on the table, clearly hoping he would loosen up, but Harry was convinced that if he let a single drop pass his lips he would suddenly become horrifically drunk and ruin everything.

It felt like the meal had taken an extremely long time, but then again when it was time for the speeches Harry thought it had come far too soon. Hermione’s father stood first, and he cracked some joke about Ron being tall and about not really knowing how magical weddings went (to Harry’s surprise, Hermione’s parents were the only muggles there), and a bunch of other stuff about how wonderful Hermione was that Harry didn’t really listen to.

He reached for one of the little wooden pencils on the table and tried to subtly take out the joke, but Ginny noticed, and without taking her eyes off Hermione’s dad or saying a word, she reached over and smoothly took the pencil from him.

And then it was Ron. He thanked Hermione’s parents for their part in planning the wedding, and for creating the perfect woman in Hermione, rattling off the many reasons she was incredible, before turning to his own parents and thanking them for creating the perfect son, which he had had the foresight to realise would be interrupted by George, Charlie and Bill all heckling to claim the title.

Harry could vaguely hear the crowd laughing around them, had a sense of what Ron was talking about, but felt a little as though he were underwater. He finally reached for his wine and took a gulp.

‘-We would also like to thank our best man, Harry,’ said Ron, and Harry hurriedly swallowed his wine and put his glass down, twisting in his seat to look up at Ron. ‘I know he absolutely hates giving speeches, and he looks sick as a skrewt over there, but he agreed to do this anyway, ‘cos that’s the kind of bloke he is-’

Harry felt his cheeks redden as many people turned to grin at him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Ginny smile warmly at him.

‘-He’s been our best friend right from the start, my brother in law for nearly a year, and he even managed to stay out of hospital just for our wedding, so well done there, mate.’

There was another rumble of laughter, and Harry sheepishly grinned.

‘He didn’t, however, manage to control his hair, because clearly, he doesn’t give a shit, which I think sums up his attitude towards a lot of things, like basic rules about snogging your best mate’s sister.’

There were more laughs, and jeers from the table where George, Angelina and Lee were sitting, and Harry couldn’t help but glance at Ginny with his eyebrows raised, before grinning back at Ron.

‘A lot of you here know Harry well, so I’m not going to patronise you by making jokes about fame going to his head or him having ever actually addressed childhood trauma like a normal person would-’ Harry thought it was testament that people here did know him well enough that this particular joke got laughs. ‘-And the cheeky bastard wriggled out of all this by literally running away to Scotland to marry my sister so I couldn’t make fun of him in a best man speech, which, by the way, I think proves I would beat him in the only fight that matters - a battle of wits. 

‘And as this is my groom’s speech it’s meant to be a brief thank you and moving on to thank the long list of other people I’m traditionally obliged to, not a way for me to just talk about him the whole time, no matter how much I would enjoy watching him squirm uncomfortably. But Hermione and I both agreed we can’t just move on without really thanking him, not only for all the wedding prep and making sure I got here on time, but for everything. We’re all British here, so thanks to centuries of emotional repression I’m not going to get too soppy, but we’d just like to say that it’s always been the three of us; me, Hermione and Harry, and we’ve been through an awful lot together. We count ourselves lucky that we have you here to make fun of on our wedding day at all, and, er, we love you, mate, both of us.’

There was a gentle rise of ‘aw’ and squeaking noises along with the applause, and Harry could see Hermione dabbing beneath her eyes with the back of her hand. For his part, he suddenly couldn’t quite keep his head still - he kept glancing down at his knees before forcing himself to look back at them, that odd choking sensation back in his throat.

‘Now that I’ve made him feel awkward, I’ll move swiftly on to thank the others so he can collect himself together before his best man speech - you’re all going to have to pretend to enjoy it, but I’m afraid it will probably be shit.’

Harry grinned again, and felt slightly more relaxed as he listened to the rest of Ron’s speech, where he thanked the bridesmaids and ushers, page boy Teddy and flower girls Vic and Dom, and the staff at the venue.

‘I’m now going to hand over to Harry - he’s assured me that unlike many best man speeches which are usually full of sexual innuendos if there’s anything remotely risque he’ll whip it out immediately.’

He immediately felt sick again as he rose, the audience’s laughter swarming around him. He could hear his own breathing very loudly, and everything else felt a bit muffled. Had they really needed to invite quite so many people? Really? Them, Molly and Arthur had been enough for him and Ginny. He touched his wand to his throat to magnify his voice, as Ron had done. 

‘Good evening, for those of you who don’t know me-’

He had a nice little confidence boost as people started tittering already. Beside him, still seated, Ginny subtly stroked her hand reassuringly against his knee. This made him realise it was probably because they were trembling slightly.

‘-I’m the poor sap who accepted this role of best man without really realising what it means. If, like me, you’re feeling nervous, apprehensive and queasy at the thought of what lies ahead… Well, I’m sorry Hermione, but you had your chance to make a run for it. But I am happy to preside over the only five minutes of this wedding that you didn’t meticulously plan, so I’ll leap right into it.

‘Hermione, you look beautiful. You’re a wonderful, brave woman, who deserves a wonderful husband. And as an auror, I consider it my solemn obligation to not rest until I get to the bottom of what’s gone wrong here, and how you ended up with Ron, a man who got spiked with a love potion and poisoned within the space of an hour.

‘Rita Skeeter has accused us often of having a secret relationship - but Hermione, I’m sorry, it never could’ve worked. Not just because I see you as my sister, but because your remarkable intelligence would just be too much for me to deal with. You need someone who is content to be a moron, and I’m so glad you’ve found him.

‘As for you, Ron, not a day goes by when I’m not stupendously grateful that you sat in my compartment on that first Hogwarts Express journey, because if you hadn’t, I might never have got to know your mum, who is fantastic, or your sister, who I’ll get onto later. I would also like to thank you for asking me to be your best man, because this speech really lets me get a few things off my chest…

‘Being the third wheel to your agonising relationship of sexual tension and bickering was easily the worst part of my childhood. Years and years of awkwardly sitting there while you made bedroom eyes at one another across the table, bouncing between the two of you trying to get you to talk to the other after the latest fall out, months of being on the run stuck with the pair of you in a tent, desperately hoping I wouldn’t end up hearing, or worse, seeing, you two finally realising that it would be easier to just get off with each other rather than argue.

‘Both of you were as bad as each other, but as it’s considered poor form to make fun of the bride, I’ll stick to Ron… Ron, you arsehole. You once told me that all was fair in love and war and that this was a bit of both. Well, no, Ron, not really. I don’t know if everyone here knows how this lovely couple ended up getting together, but if they’ve been telling you something romantic, they’re lying - they were both covered in slime and clutching a bunch of old animal teeth. But the worst part was that I really needed them to focus on other stuff, because I was at risk of dying at any moment.

‘But I got you back a long time ago, Ron…’ Harry paused, staring at the joke he and Ginny had giggled over while drunk and she had now insisted stay, and he felt her hand on his leg nudge him. He took a breath, and tried not to think about how many members of the family were there. ‘I got you back when I fucked your sister.’

The hall exploded with noise - shocked laughter, groans, and a huge wave of jeers. Harry glanced down at Ginny and shook his head witheringly at her. She sat smugly, very much enjoying the way Ron was laughing, but covering his face.

When the noise had settled down, Harry continued. ‘Now that I’m done fixing that target on my back, I’ll be nicer in the hope that Ron and his brothers won’t draw out my suffering too much…’ He paused again, and took another deep breath. ‘While Ron and I were fast friend right from the start, as a trio we took a little longer to really become what The Daily Prophet describes as an unfriendly and exclusive clique. Ron and I had been… Well, we’d been little shits, quite frankly, and as a result Hermione was crying in the bathroom on the Halloween of our first year. Through a long winded set of circumstances Ron and I ended up - quite accidentally - locking a troll in there with her. I think there are certain things you can’t do without becoming best friends, and it so happens that knocking out a sixteen-foot troll is one of them.

‘You said very nice things about me earlier that have filled me with guilt about this horrible speech, and in general, what a nuisance I must have been for you both over all these years, not just for constantly being a source of worry, but also for getting in the way of your passionate romance. I couldn’t have asked for more unendingly patient, supportive and wonderful friends. I love you both too, and I hope you have a very long and happy marriage together. To the bride and groom!’

‘To the bride and groom!’ the hall echoed.


End file.
